Historical grounding,political contexts,material hurdles: Towards more in-depth understandings of ‘finance going farming’

Two recently published books—Fairbairn's Fields of Gold and Ouma's Farming as a Financial Asset—now provide the first extensive investigations into finance's engagement with farmland. Both books set out to understand finance's growing interest in farmland from the perspective of the financial actors involved, and inquire how, why, and with what kind of challenges ‘finance has been going farming.’ This review essay discusses the two books in the context of the ‘land rush’ literature. It outlines how they contribute to an advanced understanding of the financialization of farmland in three ways, by (i) embedding finance-farmland intersections historically; (ii) scrutinizing the role of the state within financial farmland investments; and (iii) exploring the hurdles involved in ‘marrying’ finance with farmland. I then critically reflect on the areas that have not been covered by the authors. Critical agrarian studies need to investigate how financialization intersects with the digitization of agriculture, examine life expectancies and afterlives of financialized farms, further ground financial investment in concrete rural spaces, and explore individual motivations and belief systems of its proponents more seriously.     

农地流转对农户土地利用行为及效果影响探究

在农地流转的影响下,农户的土地利用结构、土地投入、土地利用效率发生了改变。通过对现有文献的总结,全面探析农地流转行为对农户土地利用行为及效果的影响,以期阐明国内外学者现有研究的不足及未来的主要研究方向。对文献的梳理得出:农地流转中,"非农化"及"非粮化"倾向明显,且土地流转市场、土地利用比较收益、政府引导是三大主要驱动力;随着农地规模的扩大,单位面积劳动投入减少,劳动产出率提高;农地流转对农地投入及农业生产效率产生何种影响,国内外学者仍存在分歧,这主要是由于现有研究不够系统深入,未考虑土地流转市场、地权稳定性、农户类型、流转方式、流转用途等因素的作用。要充分发挥农地流转对农民收入的促进作用,政府应从完善土地流转市场,提高地权稳定性出发,但如何避免流转农地"非粮化"以确保国家粮食安全仍是一个亟待解决的问题,这也是未来的一个主要研究方向。     

非农就业对农户农地价值预期的影响研究——来自CHFS的实证分析

目的 在我国农村人口非农就业转移进程不断加深背景下,非农就业活动改变了农户家庭与农地之间的依附关系,研究非农就业活动对农户农地价值预期的影响,既有助于理解农地价值形成机理,又对推进我国农业农村现代化具有重要意义。方法 文章基于2015年中国家庭金融调查（CHFS）农户层面的微观数据,以耕地作为农地的代表,采用OLS回归模型和中介效应模型实证分析非农就业对农户农地价值预期的影响。结果 非农就业并未降低农户对农地的依赖、减少耕地要素投入,相反非农就业增强了土地替代要素的投入、激发了农户农转非的资本积累需求,从而导致农户提高了农地的价值预期。结论 （1）我国农户的非农就业转移并未完成,亟需创新和完善农村土地流转机制;（2）农地依旧是农户生存的重要保证,需积极支撑或培育专业化农业生产性服务业和智能化农业机械制造业的发展,弥补农业劳动力非农转移带来的负面效应,加快推进我国农业农村现代化。     

Implications of land-use change in rural China: A case study of Yucheng,Shandong province

Based on surveys on rural land-use change at village scale in Yucheng City, Shandong province, this paper presents how land-use change takes place in response to inhibitive institutional forces in light of an outmoded land ownership system and unreasonable land use rights administration, and discusses it in the broader social context of industrialization, rural depopulation, a dual-track land market, and land use legislation. Spatial comparison of land use maps interpreted from aerial photographs in different period unveils a decrease in arable land for farming, and an increase in rural settlements, facilities land and unused land. Despite rural depopulation, rural settlements area nearly tripled during 1967–2008. Nearly all newly gained non-agricultural land originated from farmland at the village fringe while formerly facilities land and unused land had been converted to residential use and it was abandoned later. Thus, the destructive farmland conversion from productive use to non-agricultural uses took place at multiple stages. Questionnaire survey of 1650 households in 48 villages in Yucheng City indicated that 41% of the households had multiple dwellings, even though some of them are not occupied or even ruined. This finding may damp the rosy picture of the reportedly slowdown in China's farmland reduction in recent years as these destructive changes are too small to detect from satellite imagery, and it will also provide a practical scientific basis for constituting more strict farmland protection objectives and strategies for China in the near future. In order to hold back the destructive conversion trend from farmland to non-agricultural uses, the authors argue that policy and institution innovation concerning land use and urban–rural development in China needs feature highly in the government's agenda.     

农村土地“三权分置”的新制度经济学分析

[目的]从新制度经济学视角梳理农村土地"三权分置"的制度变迁过程,并对"三权"各自的权能进行分析,针对现存集体所有权主体缺失、土地承包权权能混乱、土地经营权性质不清等问题解释其原因并提出对策建议。[方法]运用文献综述法、对比法对农村土地试行"三权分置"后集体所有权、农户承包权、土地经营权各自权能进行划分和界定,理顺三者关系。[结果](1)"三权分置"是农村土地产权权能的进一步分解与细化,集体所有权被赋予更完整的土地所有权能;(2)"三权分置"过程中承包地流转路径得到进一步强化,打破土地承包经营权的"成员权"限制;(3)土地经营权的市场性功能与农户承包权的福利性功能同时增强,进一步减少土地对农民的束缚。[结论]"三权分置"是解决农地无人耕种、推动农村土地适度规模经营的重要途径,合理界定"三权"的权能、理顺"三权"的经济学关系、破解法律制度障碍是"三权分置"的改革重点和方向。     

From Agrarian Reform to Ethnodevelopment in the Highlands of Ecuador

Through an examination of interventions in the agrarian structures and rural society of the Ecuadorian Andes over the past 40 years, this article explores the gradual imposition of a particular line of action that separates rural development from the unresolved question of the concentration of land ownership and wealth among the very few. This imposition has been the consequence, it is argued, of the new development paradigms implemented in Andean peasant communities since the end of land reform in the 1970s. The new paradigms emphasize identity and organizational aspects of indigenous populations at the expense of anything connected with the class‐based campesinista agenda, which was still operational in the indigenous movement in the early 1990s. The essay concludes with some thoughts on the remarkable parallels between the 1990s neoliberal and counter‐reformist models of action, and the pre‐reformist indigenist policies of the period that ended in the 1960s.     

台湾农地保护政策的演变及对大陆的启示

台湾50多年来的农业发展过程中进行过三次农地改革,每一次农地制度改革对台湾的农业、工业乃至整个社会都产生了十分重要的作用,形成了独特的"台湾模式"。台湾农地改革对大陆的启示是:土他改革是农业生产的推动力,不同的农业发展阶段需采取不同的农地保护政策,农地政策对农地数量的变化具有重要影响,土地改革需有详尽的法律规定作基础。大陆的农地保护应从数量、质量、生态三方面进行,建立产权明晰的土地政策,制定并颁布基本农田保护法规,避免农地非农化的随意性,优化土地利用结构提高农地利用效益。     

The Farmland Rental Paradox: Extreme land ownership fragmentation as a new form of land degradation

Extreme farmland ownership fragmentation is becoming a limiting factor for sustainable land management in some countries. Scattered, excessively small parcels cease to be viable for individual farming, and owners feel forced to rent these parcels to larger enterprises farming on adjacent land. Our study demonstrates a phenomenon that we call the Farmland Rental Paradox, where very small parcels tend to create large production blocks by being rented to larger farmers, and therefore to significantly homogenize the land-use pattern. The parcel size established as the threshold for this phenomenon is 1.07 ha. Below this threshold, the smaller the parcels were, the larger the blocks that they tended to create.Using the example of the Czech Republic, a state with extremely high farmland ownership fragmentation, it is demonstrated that this phenomenon can currently determine the land use of up to 40% of the country's farmland. Our study also points to other countries where this phenomenon may apply, especially the transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe.The study discusses the tempo of the fragmentation process, which accelerates exponentially in countries with the equal inheritance system. It goes on to discuss defragmentation, social impacts of the dominance of the land rental market, and environmental impacts of significant homogenization of the land-use pattern. The serious negative impacts of extreme land-ownership fragmentation show that this phenomenon can be considered as a significant form of land degradation.     

Fictitious commodification and agrarian change: Indigenous peoples and land markets in Highland Ecuador

Creating private property rights and establishing land markets were fundamental to the historical development of capitalism in the Global North and remain at the centre of capitalist development in the Global South. This article contributes to debates about these processes by analysing the relationship between land markets and indigenous peoples in Highland Ecuador. Building on Karl Polanyi's concept of fictitious commodities, it elaborates a new concept that makes an analytical distinction between the activation and development of land markets. The former refers to the occasional participation of actors in markets to secure land, whereas the latter relates to the establishment and expansion of markets that regulate the distribution and value of land through market prices. Focusing on indigenous land struggles in the late 20th century, this article shows that the activation of land markets created opportunities for indigenous peasants to secure land, whereas the development of land markets closed them down. Social and class differentiation among the highland indigenous population increased through this contradictory process. The article connects this historical analysis to recent developments in Ecuador to contribute to empirical and theoretical debates about contemporary land struggles and agrarian change elsewhere in the Global South.     

The Conflicted State and Agrarian Transformation in Pink Tide Venezuela

Can radical political‐economic transformation be achieved by electoral regimes that have not thoroughly reconstructed the state? Contemporary Venezuela offers an optimal venue for examining this question. The Chavista movement did not replace the previous state: instead, its leaders attempted to reform existing state entities and establish new ones in pursuit of its transformation agenda. It has also used its oil wealth to support cooperatively‐oriented economic activity, without necessarily fundamentally altering the property structure. Thus, the social change‐oriented political economy exists alongside the traditional one. Focusing on agrarian transformation, we examine ethnographically how these factors have impacted the state's capacity to attain its goal of national food sovereignty. We find that the state's ability to accomplish this objective has been compromised by lack of agency‐level capacity, inter‐agency conflict and the persistence of the previously‐extant agrarian property structure. These dynamics have influenced the state to shift from its initial objective of food sovereignty to a policy of nationalist food security.     

The politics of agrarian change in Bolivia's soy complex

This paper analyses the politics of agrarian change in Bolivia in the context of the development and expansion of the soy complex in Santa Cruz. It attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the nature and role of the state in relation to agrarian change through what is referred to here as the state–society–capital nexus. From an “agrarian” to a “productive” revolution in the countryside, this paper situates the rise of the Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS) to state power and its ability to maintain control over the state apparatus by balancing both accumulation and legitimation interests through its neo‐extractivist development strategy. As extractivist rents fall with the commodities bust and smallholders' exclusion becomes more apparent, the MAS' overextension in facilitating capital accumulation is beginning to show signs of a legitimacy crisis. The politics of agrarian change remain as contested as the dynamics within the state–society–capital nexus.     

法学视角中的农村土地三权分离改革

研究目的:探讨农村土地所有权、土地承包权和土地经营权的三权分离改革是否符合法学原理,研究如何推进相应的制度建设。研究方法:文献资料法,归纳演绎法,比较分析法等。研究结果:土地承包经营权不能分离为独立的土地承包权和土地经营权;土地所有权是法律概念,而土地承包权和土地经营权不是法律概念,因此农村土地三权分离存在明显的法学悖论。研究结论:法学中的权利与经济学中的产权具有较大的区别,必须在物权债权二元财产权体系中确定农村土地的权利结构。     

Elections, Land and the Politics of Opposition in Matabeleland

In the run up to the elections of June 2000, President Robert Mugabe promised to deliver land to the people; he sought to rede?ne the rural areas as the moral heart of the nation, and used veterans from the liberation war to spear‐head occupations of largely white‐owned commercial farmland. ZANU‐PF's electoral campaign succeeded in large swathes of the countryside, but it was notably unsuccessful in Matabeleland. In rural (as well as urban) Matabeleland, ZANU‐PF experienced a massive, and largely unanticipated, electoral defeat. Here we explore the reasons behind rural Matabeleland's electoral results. Our discussion focuses on three districts of Matabeleland North (Nkayi, Lupane and Hwange), where we investigate the dynamics of particular land occupations, both major parties' electoral campaigns and local re?ections on the electoral outcome and the ongoing politics of land.We stress the importance of the legacies of ZAPU's nationalism, of post Independence state violence, of perceived economic neglect and the particular agrarian dynamics of this region.     

Paying for ecological services in Ecuador: The political economy of structural inequality

Paying Indigenous communities to conserve land for carbon sequestration is a controversial way of tackling climate change. Critics argue that paying for ecological services (or ‘PES’) in the form of carbon offset programmes reduces land and social relations to an economic transaction that devalues Indigenous livelihoods and communities. At the same time, empirical studies have shown that Indigenous communities have accepted and even embraced the idea of being paid to conserve land for climate change mitigation. This paper explores this apparent contradiction by investigating the implementation of Programa Socio Bosque (PSB), a PES carbon sequestration programme in Ecuador. Drawing upon primary fieldwork in the highland province of Chimborazo, it makes the case that PES programmes need to be understood as form of state power that reconfigures and reinforces the ways in which Indigenous peoples engage with the state. Particularly important in this regard is the role of the state in reinforcing the agrarian conditions under which Indigenous communities use and interpret PES payments while at the same time reconfiguring new forms of land conservation. Empirically, the research reveals important complementarities between the goals of carbon sequestration PES programmes and Indigenous land-use practices. Methodologically, it highlights the importance of situating the study of PES programmes in a context of land struggles, community–state relations and agrarian change.     

(Landlord) Theory from the South: Empire and estates on a Punjabi Frontier

Theory has occasionally shaped agrarian transformations. Utilitarian theory, for instance, influenced British colonial land revenue policies, while modernization theory spurred, via the Green Revolution, the development of capitalist farming across the global South. Yet scholarship, when it has probed the mediation of theory in agrarian change, has largely centred on the intellectual activities of Western figures. In this paper, I examine an under-appreciated theorizing actor: landlords in the global South. I explore landlords' concept-work in the former “Punjab Frontier,” a region where Baloch chiefs collaborated with the British Raj to acquire localized magisterial powers, a paramilitary apparatus, and immense “landed estates” (jagirs). To overcome various crises, certain chiefs engaged with various imperial concepts—namely, property, race, progress, contract, and freedom—and re-arranged their estates. By showing how these elites creatively embraced these concepts to maintain a colonial-fortified hegemony, I also challenge those who overstate the emancipatory and decolonial possibilities of theory from the South.     

Farmer Gone Fish'n? Swidden Decline and the Rise of Grouper Fishing on Palawan Island,the Philippines

Considerable research has focused on understanding how upland farmers adjust land‐based livelihoods to the influences of agrarian change in Southeast Asia. In the process, an ‘upland bias’ has emerged where researchers focus narrowly on the uplands as localities with distinct, coherent features, neglecting how families engage place, social relations and ethnicity as they access opportunities in proximate spaces. This paper considers how the Tagbanua – long considered an upland swidden people – have ‘stepped back’ from swidden agriculture due to declining yields and debt to harvest the lucrative grouper (e.g. Plectropomus leopardus). We show how Tagbanua families on Palawan Island have adjusted swidden as they negotiate social relations, ethnic cleavages and economic barriers to effectively engage the grouper industry. Rather than cast such farmers and fishers as ideal types in place, we argue that how they negotiate social relations creates new livelihood opportunities in varied environments, reinforcing the dynamic, recursive context of agrarian change.     

Spatio-temporal dynamic patterns of farmland and rural settlements in Su–Xi–Chang region: Implications for building a new countryside in coastal China

This paper analyzes the spatio-temporal dynamic patterns of farmland and rural settlements from 1990 to 2006 in Su–Xi–Chang region of coastal China experienced dramatic economic and spatial restructuring, using high-resolution Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) data in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2006, and socio-economic data from both research institutes and government departments. To examine the spatial patterns of farmland and rural settlements and their change over time, a set of pattern metrics that capture different dimensions of land fragmentation was identified. The outcomes indicated that, to a large extent, land-use change from 1990 to 2006 in Su–Xi–Chang region was characterized by a serious replacement of farmland with urban and rural settlements, construction land, and artificial ponds. Population growth, rapid industrialization and urbanization are the major driving forces of farmland change, and China's economic reforms played an important role in the transformation of rural settlements. China's “building a new countryside” is an epoch-making countryside planning policy. The focuses of building a new countryside in coastal China need to be concentrated on protecting the farmland, developing modern agriculture, and building “clean and tidy villages.” Rural construction land consolidation and cultivated land consolidation are two important ways to achieve the building objectives. The authors argue that it is fundamental to lay out a scientific urban–rural integrated development planning for building a new countryside, which needs to pay more attention to making the rural have certain functions serving for the urban. In addition, the cultural elements of idyll and the rural landscape need to be reserved and respected in the process of building a new countryside in coastal China, instead of building a new countryside, which looks more like a city.     

平原地区粮食种植户适度耕地规模标准分类及测算——基于陕西省武功县和眉县的调查

[目的]追求适度规模经营仍然是我国发展现代农业的重要措施,确定农户适度耕地规模标准无论是在理论层面还是现实层面都具有非常重要的意义。[方法]文章构建基于农户利润最大化的最优耕地经营规模模型,推导单位劳动力最优耕地经营规模公式,单位劳动力最小必要耕地规模公式、单位劳动力最大限度耕地规模公式,分析各公式之间的关系以及影响因素,最后应用调研数据以粮食生产为例进行实证检验,确定农户的各种适度耕地规模标准。[结果](1)单位劳动力利润最大化情况下的耕地规模与农户非农就业工资水平成正比,与农户耕地地租水平成反比;(2)单位劳动力最佳劳动力投入的最小必要耕地规模与农户非农就业工资水平成正比,与农产品价格、生产技术水平以及人均资本占有量等因素成反比;(3)单位劳动力最佳土地投入的最大限度耕地规模与耕地地租水平成反比,与农产品价格、生产技术水平以及人均资本占有量等因素成正比。[结论]在研究区域内,现有技术水平下,每个从事粮食种植的有效劳动力应获得不低于2.4hm2的最小必要耕地规模,最优规模水平5.933hm2属于长期经营目标,最大规模水平11.667hm2属于单位劳动力经营不能逾越的红线。     

LADM-based profile for farmland Tripartite Entitlement System in China

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China has undergone a promotion of industrialisation, urbanisation and agricultural modernisation. This promotion has triggered the mass migration of rural labour forces into cities, leading to the virtual situation of the separation of farmland contract and operation rights. To respond to this issue, the central government proposed a strategy of farmland reform in China. Such reform aims to transform the former ‘Bipartite Entitlement System’ into a ‘Tripartite Entitlement System (TES)’.¹ Land registration provides the means for recognising formalised property rights and regulating the characteristics and transfer of land-related rights. As for farmland registration in China, it serves as a basis to explore effective forms of collective farmland ownership by implementing collective farmland ownership, stabilising farmers’ contract rights and liberalising farmland operation rights. Thus, in this study, on the basis of the farmland tripartite entitlement (hereinafter referred to as ‘FTE’) reform in China, we develop a Land Administration Domain Model (LADM)-based TES model that will serve as the basis of subsequent system development. Specifically, first, we summarise the evolution process of China’s farmland rights system since the foundation of new China. Second, we propose a farmland rights system after the FTE reform. Then, the corresponding TES model is developed based on the LADM standard and some instance-level diagrams for farmland administration activities. The new functionality of the model includes improved structuring of farmland rights and restrictions (and related source documents) and improved expansion of the land information infrastructure to rural areas.     

Tobacco,contract farming,and agrarian change in Zimbabwe

The growth of smallholder tobacco production since 2000 has been one of the big stories of Zimbabwe's post–land reform experience. Yet the implications for agrarian change, and the consequences for new relations between farmers, the state, and agribusiness capital have rarely been discussed. The paper reports on work carried out in the Mvurwi area of Mazowe district in Zimbabwe with a sample of 220 A1 (smallholder) farmers and 100 former farmworkers resident in compounds on the same farms. By going beyond a focus on operational and business dimensions of contract farming, the paper concludes with reflections on the implications for understanding agrarian relations and social differentiation in those areas of Zimbabwe where tobacco growing is now significant, with lessons more broadly on the political economy of contract farming, and the integration of agribusiness capital following land reform.